New research findings by scientists in Germany* – soon to be published in The Royal Society`s Proceedings B journal – will be of major importance for HIV and AIDS treatment in the future. The findings provide estimates on the likely success of drugs which are currently in development and clarifies key factors of HIV dynamics that must be eliminated to pave the way for an efficient treatment of HIV/AIDS.

Using computer simulations to map the `predator-prey` dynamics between viruses and the im

Research yields another benefit to low-dose aspirin

The original miracle drug, aspirin, continues to surprise medical scientists. While studies have proven that aspirin can prevent a second heart attack by thinning the blood, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have shown that aspirin can also prevent heart attacks and stroke through an entirely different mechanism. Using laboratory models, the Penn researchers demonstrated that aspirin also lessens the

People are more likely to keep to their plans to exercise on non-work days than on work days. However, it is worry over one’s personal life rather than work-related worries that prevents people keeping to their plans. This is the finding of a study reported today, Thursday 5 September 2002, at the British Psychological Society Division of Health Psychology Annual Conference, Sheffield Hallam University, by psychologists Nicola Payne, Fiona Jones, and Peter Harris of Sheffield Hallam University.

Soap manufacturers and governments in developing countries will today be urged to join forces to promote handwashing with soap, and help to save a million lives a year.

While most households in the world have soap and water, very few use them together to wash their hands, especially not after cleaning up a dirty baby or going to the toilet. Yet recent research at the LSHTM has revealed that the simple act of washing your hands could almost halve the number of deaths from diarrhoeal diseases

Not much is known about how clustered cancer cells move, but it is important to understand how individual cancer cells break off from a cluster and spread throughout the human body. A research collaboration between the University of Wales College of Medicine and Kingston University * has lead to the development of a computational imaging technique that tracks the movement of individual cancer cells within cell clusters.

Dr Hoppe, a member of the research team from Kingston University, will

A Loughborough University research team, led by Professor Peter Smith and Vincent Crabtree, has developed a way of monitoring the blood flowing in human body tissue without actually touching the skin. This hands-free technique could one day be used to assess patients during surgery and monitor the healing of wounds or burns. Other applications include a remote heart rate monitor.

Speaking at the Photon02 Conference in Cardiff on Monday 2 September Mr Crabtree will explain how the team adapte

Insulin resistance, a condition commonly associated with the development of type 2 diabetes, is likely a major cause of kidney disease, or nephropathy, in people with type 1 diabetes, according to study results published by University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH) researchers in the September issue of Kidney International, a journal of the International Society of Nephrology. “Kidney disease is a major lethal complication for people with diabetes, particularly those with type

Danish authors of a research letter in this week’s issue of THE LANCET provide further evidence which suggests that allergic diseases are becoming increasingly common in western populations.

Allergic diseases are thought to be increasingly common in more-developed countries, but few studies have measured the frequency of atopy with objective measures, and most of these studies have been done in industrialised countries. Tyra Krause and colleagues from Statens Serum Institut, Copenhagen, De

A chemical isolated from a weed that grows in mountain meadows in the western United States kills the cells of an aggressive brain cancer that affects some children. The compound, cyclopamine, blocks a signaling pathway that appears to be important for the survival of medulloblastoma, a form of cancer for which there is no effective treatment.

In an article published in the August 30, 2002, issue of the journal Science, a research team led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Phi

Women who have received a heart, heart-lung or lung transplant are having successful pregnancies after transplantation, according to a study by researchers at Jefferson Medical College.

While such pregnancies are considered “high risk,” the results are encouraging, says Vincent Armenti, M.D., Ph.D., professor of surgery at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

The researchers compiled information through the National Pregnancy Transplantation Regi

Answer revealed in glowing live cells

Using a new mouse model that literally glows with health- protecting molecules, researchers have rewritten part of the textbook tale about how the immune system knows when to fight germs.

Time-lapse video from a pair of Harvard Medical School labs shows how pieces of captured germs may work their way to the surface of live dendritic cells. Dendritic cells are immune cells that alert other immune cells about invading germs. Inside a dendri

Mechanism may provide insights into development and cancer

When cells divide in two, they must carefully manage the process by which their DNA is replicated and then apportioned to the daughter cells. In one critical step along the way, the replicated DNA strands – or sisters – are held together for a period by a temporary scaffold of bridging proteins. When the timing is right, the proteins unzip, allowing the DNA sisters to separate. Errors in this or other steps in cell division ca

Protein phosphatase 1 (PP1) belongs to a group of molecules that on the basis of earlier studies has been proposed to be a controlling factor for learning and memory. The ETH researchers produced genetically modified mice in which the activity of PP1 can be reduced at will. These animals were subjected to various learning and memory tests in one of which, the mice had to learn about various objects in a box. For this, they were trained on different schedules: without any interruption during learning

Non-smokers who are exposed to environmental tobacco smoke for at least 30 minutes a day are at far greater risk of developing acute coronary syndromes compared with people who are not exposed, finds a study in Tobacco Control.

These findings support the role of environmental tobacco smoke in the development of adverse cardiac events.

A total of 847 individuals with a first event of acute coronary syndromes and 1,078 cardiovascular disease-free controls were included in the study. P

Every morning millions of Americans reach for the world’s most popular drug to help them start their day.

“That drug is caffeine,” said Dr. James Bibb, assistant professor of psychiatry at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. Bibb is one of the authors of a new report explaining how caffeine exerts its stimulatory effect by altering the biochemistry of the brain. The findings appear in an August issue of Nature.

“Caffeine is the most frequently self-administered dru

USDA Forest Service plant pathologists have discovered a new cause of damage to loblolly pine seedlings grown in the South – needle nematodes. In the July 2002 issue of Plant Disease, pathologists Stephen Fraedrich (SRS Insects and Diseases of Southern Forests unit in Athens, GA) and Michelle Cram (Forest Health Protection Program, Region 8) report on finding a previously undescribed species of nematode stunting the growth of pine seedlings in a Georgia nursery.

In 1998, a three-year study w